Debt Ceiling

All this talk about the debt ceiling has got me thinking, about our kitchen ceiling.

See, it's not that I don't want to be interested in the political ramifications of the nation having our rating lowered and interest rates rising and other terrible shit happening-- I want to be interested in that. But it's a little too... I don't know... macro for me.

I'm not a macro kind of guy.

I'm more micro.

Remember Micro Machines? They're more my speed. I could fix a Micro Machine if it broke. If, say, one of its wheels fell off, I could deal with that. If my big-boy car broke, 9.9 times out of 10, I couldn't fix that.

Why?

Because that's a macro machine. Mac. Roe.

Macro things are so much harder for me to conceptualize because, I feel, I don't have the appropriate tools in my toolbox. Actually, I'm not even sure I have the toolbox. In fact, let's be honest-- I don't have the toolbox. I just have a hammer and a wallpaper scraper and a couple of other shit tools kind of just strewn about in random places in my brain. And you can't do much on the macro level with a hammer and a wallpaper scraper and a couple of other shit tools kind of just lying about.

You certainly can't accurately grasp all of the key concepts of the current debacle revolving around the nation's debt and the geopolitical consequences that are both imminent and far-reaching should we really boehner this up.

So I retreat inward. To the world I understand. To... my kitchen.

We've got drop-ceiling in there, and God is it fuckall awful. Drop ceiling is wretched in church basement daycares and soul-violating cubicle-farms. It has no business being in houses. Residences. Places where people are supposed to enter and be moved.

Mark Twain said of his Hartford house, "We could not enter it unmoved."

When I enter our kitchen and look upward, I want to move my bowels. But I wouldn't do that, because my wife and I painstakingly laid down cork flooring all by ourselves (okay, with some help from her father) and I wouldn't dream of befouling said flooring with my arse-leavings.

But all this talk about the debt ceiling on NPR and such has really solidified the fact that this ceiling's got to go. Otherwise, there will be consequences, and consequences that I can actually understand.

Those consequences are, but are certainly not limited to:

* feeling the continued urge to move my bowels upon entering our kitchen and looking up

* feeling like I'm in the film "Office Space" when I enter our kitchen and look up, you no-talent ass-clown

* feeling the urge to cut myself, bang my head against the wall, burn myself with a cigarette, swallow a toothbrush, rub Brillo pads against my wrists, and engage in other self-destructive behaviors when I enter our kitchen and look up

* feeling the urge to prevent, at all costs, people I love and/or care for and/or respect and/or can see from entering our kitchen and looking up

* feeling the urge to smear peanut butter and deer viscera all over the drop-ceiling and unleash thirty wild brown bears clamor all over each other for the honor of being the first to eat significant portions of said drop-ceiling

* feeling the urge to invite over local clergy to exorcise the drop-ceiling

* feeling the urge to move my bowels while I blog (guess I should be doing this on my smartphone)

Just remember, kids: though the debt ceiling is important-- probably-- there are other ceilings to consider. Like mine. And that thing Michelangelo did or whatever.

I hate our ceiling. You can't come over to our house and play.

Ever.

Voce del Bambino

It's so hard to find the middle ground sometimes, don't you think?

Life's topography is just so unpredictable and in such a constant state of flux, you can really addle your brain searching for moderation, striving for consistency, and aiming for the center often just lands you quite off target.

There are times where I feel like I take life far too seriously-- I worry constantly about my job performance, for instance, and whether or not there will be enough money to sustain and support eventual procreation and child-rearing. I fret about relationships and ethics and logistics that, in the end, probably won't matter all that much. It's a good thing I don't bite my nails because, by now, I'd probably only have gnarled knuckles left.

Then there are times where I feel guilty because I don't take life seriously enough. I often make light of serious issues, the plight of my fellow man is oftentimes amusing to me-- and not even in a schadenfreude kind of way like enjoying YouTube clips of people falling into rivers or tumbling down flights of stairs-- but the petty melodramas that seem to envelop people I know or with whom I associate are often comical to me.

And I laugh. Verily, I do laugh.

Sometimes, if my mood is approaching serious, I'll feel guilty for laughing. Other times, I don't give a shit, and I'll just laugh because, damnit, it feels good, like peeing in the shower.

(NB: I say this, but I don't actually know if that feels good or not. I suppose there's really no reason to think it wouldn't feel good. Interestingly enough, peeing in the shower is a pretty hot topic at work, and seems to be discussed with disquieting regularity. I have at least four coworkers who have openly admitted to urinating in their showers. I suppose, one day, I'll try it, out of just plain curiosity and/or the eventual gerontological incontinence.)

Yesterday morning, I was listening to NPR on my way to work, as I often do, more out of habit than out of a desire to stay informed about the often esoteric and far-removed events of the globe and its insipid inhabitants. As I mentioned on Facebook in a moment of pure drollery, it's amazing that I can listen to the news on the radio for a full hour and, at the conclusion of that hour, still have no idea what the hell is going on in the world.

But, I listen, because I think I ought to listen.

So, yesterday, I was listening to Morning Edition, because I'm white and wear glasses and drive a Scandinavian sedan and have a job where I get health benefits, and a particular story struck my ear in a very discordant and unfamiliar way. It was a story by reporter Kelly McEvers, about Bahrain detaining a physician who administered aid to protestors. McEvers described the circumstances surrounding the detention of the doctor, and then proceeded to introduce audio recordings of an interview done with one of the doctor's female relatives. McEvers explained, "We've altered her voice so authorities won't recognize her."

Which is good that she mentioned that, otherwise I would have thought this woman was a card-carrying member of the Lollipop Guild.

Honest to God, they made her voice sound like Alvin and the goddamned Chipmunks. It was ridiculous. It was Monty Python. It was... fucking hysterical. Of course, what she was saying wasn't hysterical at all-- it wasn't even mildly funny, like in an ABC sitcom sort of way-- it was very serious, in fact. For instance, she said,

"The guy who took him said just you can just wait outside. And then they waited for a very long time."

I mean, that's not even grammatically correct. It's not funny at all. It sounds like poorly-translated dialogue from "Dinner with André".

And yet, try to imagine it said in a voice that sounds like a three-year-old who's been sucking down helium for the past five minutes, and you'll be rolling around on the floor with your pancreas about to burst. Honestly, there were fucking tears streaming down my cheeks. And they kept quoting her, and it got even funnier. I was begging McEvers to stop, but she couldn't hear me. Because she was on the radio. With the helium woman.

It just goes to show you that even a vaunted news organization like NPR makes poor choices and/or outright mistakes. Like in their article announcing the death of Jack Kevorkian, where they talk about the first assisted suicide he ever performed:

"That's when Janet Adkins climbed into the back of his VW van in a suburban Detroit park, laid down and waited as Kevorkian put a needle into her arm."

An unbelievably pedantic and uncommonly helpful reader named Lili Fuller replied with a comment, writing:

"Within the text of this story, the writer has confused the past tense of lay and lie. Janet Adkins lay down, she didn't put anything down. Please, NPR, ask your reporters to pay attention to their usage. After all, your listeners expect you to perform to a higher standard than the rest of the media."

And if you think Lili Fuller is a stitch, just think about her saying that fucking annoying shit with her voice altered to sound like a baby.

Macro/Micro

I was talking to an old friend recently about a certain international event that has got everybody all lathered up of late. He mentioned that he had been talking the matter over with his wife for several days, and she brought up the point that this particular incident had potentially dramatic consequences, not just for Pakistan, but for Israel. My friend then asked me for my opinion on the subject. I was quiet for a little while, and I answered,

"Possibly. We'll have to see."

Profound, I know.

The fact of the matter is this: I live in America. I don't live in Pakistan, and I don't live in Israel. My father is from Israel, but we don't live there, and my family doesn't live there. In my world, small as it is, I care about what and whom I emotionally connect with. There are people of Irish descent in this country who've never set foot in Ireland, but belong to organizations (they'd probably spell it "organisations") like "Celtic Connection" (they'd probably spell it "Connexion") and, whenever something happens in Ireland, their ears perk up.

When shit goes down in the Middle East, I am relatively unfazed. Sorry. I just can't help it.

International news in general interests me, of course. Like a good Jewish Volvo driver, I read the NYT online edition every day. And by "read" I mean "scan the headlines of for stories that might potentially interest me." However, I am not someone who gets his rocks particularly off over espousing my views on what's going on in Tibet or the Congo. Do I have views on these subjects?

Sometimes. Not always.

Oftentimes, I feel far too ill-informed to formulate a view or opinion, and I would feel silly discussing something about which I am not grossly informed and/or semi-ambivalent about.

Why would I bother? To sound smart? I kind of think I'm smart already. To hear myself talk? Meh-- kind of nasal.

I guess sometimes I'm just too damned practical-- too fucking micro-- to engage in heated discussions about international affairs. I wish I was the sort of person who enjoyed getting all animated jawing about Egypt or Syria, but I'm just not. The people in these countries are going to do what they do whether or not I offer my view around the chart-room table. I'm not going to impress anybody, or move anybody, or gain anything out of chewing the fat about the value of the euro on a Thursday afternoon. I'd much rather talk about issues surrounding my job, or the challenges we face in every day life.

For me, the smaller the issue, the better. It's something I can conceptualize, something which with I can wrestle and, not only that, something I can (possibly) do something about.

Maybe that's what bothers me so much about fervent discussions about international affairs. What is going to change by talking about it? What is it going to matter what I think? Easy: it's not.

To that end, my wife and I are not the sort of couple that engages each other in spirited debate on matters of politics or happenings in far off places. Sometimes I wish we were that sort of couple but, mostly, I don't.

I think it's great if you're in a relationship where you can fight like James Carville and his wife over politics and then have romper-room-style sex afterwards, but that's just not us. We do our best to figure life out together, and it comes with complexities aplenty, that's for sure. Because we both listen to NPR very frequently, by the time we get home and back into each others' arms where we belong, we're so sick of the daily news anyway, who the hell wants to rehash it all in the dining room or the kitchen.

Besides, we pretty much know how the other one feels about most news stories anyway, even before they happen.

Awkward Friends

When "Rushmore" came out, I realized two things:

1.) I will never be as simultaneously cool and awkward as Jason Schwartzmann.

and

2.) I love movies about awkward, unlikely friendships.

In case it's been too long since your last finely-aged Wes Anderson fix, I will take great pleasure in reminding you that, to the jangly soundtrack of the British pop invasion, bespectacled, precocious, and sometimes homicidal Rushmore Academy student Max Fisher becomes close friends with local business magnate Herman Blume, who is approximately four decades Max's senior, and wears monochromatic shirt-and-tie combinations.

In one of several touching scenes, after a falling out, Max and Herman meet outside of Max's father's barber shop. Max is wearing a green velour suit and, in honor of his friend, sports a gold shirt with a identically-hued bowtie. Max pulls a velvet-covered box from his pocket and opens it to reveal two lapel pins, both adorned with the Rushmore Academy bee mascot. "I thought you could wear one and I could wear the other," Max says, in that charmingly awkward way of his. One says "Punctuality" and the other says "Perfect Attendance," and Max offers one to Herman, also a Rushmore alum. Herman is obviously touched, and takes a careful moment to consider his choice.

"I'll take Punctuality."

And, through the rest of the film, Max wears "Perfect Attendance" and Herman wears "Punctuality," with pride.

There are a lot of reasons why I love "Rushmore." We don't need to go into all of them here, but I think the main reason why I love "Rushmore" is because it's a film that celebrates a phenomenon that I find irresistable: the bond between two inconceivably-matched men. Incongruous friendships-- intensely loyal, often tumultuous, engaging, interesting, maybe 3% homoerotically-charged, but mostly goofy, tender, powerful, gentle and real.

Although I'm writing this post at 8:07pm, EST on Sunday evening, I feel pretty confident in betting that one of those films is going to win the Academy Award.

While ardent linguistic schdorks like my wife may have been super-jazzed about the speech pathology implications and particulars of the film, it's tender-hearted schleps like me who were moved by the unlikely friendship between an English monarch and an Australian speech specialist and occasional amateur thespian. They laugh together, they fight like bears, they curse (bugger bugger bugger fuck!) and they find a way to continue being friends for the rest of their lives, in spite of the fact that, really, those two had no business cavorting about behind the radio microphones of the times.

One of my other favorite films stars Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt; it's called "The Impostors." Tucci plays Arthur and Platt plays Maurice, and they are two struggling stage actors who live together in impoverished circumstances. Together, they wind up as stowaways aboard a ship-- with hilarious consequences. Maurice calls Arthur "Arthie." They hug. They bicker. They sleep next to each other in little rickety twin beds. They fight crime together. And they practice making dramatic faces at each other. They share slices of bread and cups of tea and, when Maurice is ready to serve the meager feast, he makes sure, after thinking about it for a moment, to give his friend the bigger slice.

After a fight, Maurice pats Arthur's knee, to say, "I'm sorry" with no words. Arthur takes a sip of tea, nods his head silently, and pats Maurice's knee, giving it an extra little rub to say, "I know."

And I thought to myself and then out loud to Mrs. Apron tonight, where are these movies celebrating uncommon, kind of dorky, yet genuine and sincere and heartfelt female friendships?

"I don't get it-- why can't there be movies like that featuring to unlikely women friends? Or is every movie about female friendship, like, 'Sex and the City' or some horesecock like that?"

"Yeah," my wife said, "every movie about female friendship is, basically, that. Because women aren't allowed to be meaningful or awkward. We have to be hot and go shoe-shopping. I remember hearing an interview on NPR about a woman who kept getting cast as the stupid side-kick bitch in movies and she was like, 'No, this is a stupid device, and I'm not doing it anymore.' It sucks."

And it does suck. It goes hand-in-hand with the erroneous notion that women can't be funny. Women can have unlikely friendships in movies, and they don't have to be lesbians, or one hot chick and her awkward friendlette who is used for explication and emotional baggage unloading.

I don't understand why this can't happen. Would some intelligent feminist please explain this to me? I have to go not watch the Oscars.

Whatever Happened to Just Being Sad?

News moves at a blistering pace these days.

Soundbytes. Blips. Thumbs moving at incredible speeds on teensie QWERTYs. Tweets. Updates. Messages. Blip. Bling! Glang. Streaming tickers on the HD flatscreens in front of the elliptical machines at the gym. NPR. FOX. Everything in between, and everything beyond.

We're practically gagging on information and spin and doctrine and palaver. No, we are gagging. And, yet, we are anything but gagged. All of us, spewing and spouting, our mouths hundreds of paces in front of our minds-- left in the neuron dust. Bye-bye, brain. Won't be needing you very much today.

Googling "Gabrielle Giffords" at 4:35pm on Monday afternoon yields 76,900,000 hits. Approximately. Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. What is all of that? Is it information? Is it what we need to know, or want to, or dare to? What it is, I don't know. Now, after I hit "Publish," it'll be 76,900,001 (approximately) and I am disgusted with myself, almost to the point of wretching, for contributing to this profane noise, this internet abuse of a woman in a medically-induced coma, abuse of the corpses and memories of the victims of this appalling tragedy, this obscenity.

Hi. Here I am, another lout, contributing to the bloody mess. What a punk.

I swore up and down that I wouldn't. Of course I did. After all, it is just my style to eschew and reject what "everyone else" is talking about, as if I am some sort of badass, counter-culture barometer. Please-- what a fucking, very unfunny, very transparent joke. I promised myself I would write about something silly, maybe about different uses for bras (put one in the freezer overnight and then set it on the coffee table, fill it with candy. Haha-- what a comic genius) or some commentary about-- I don't know, inane food products or the way people look at you after you exit the restroom at work. I thought, "Yeah, well, that's what my readers want or need right now-- some levity to distract them from saturating over this deplorable situation." Like I'm going to come save you from the New York Times. Like I'm Chevy Chase, falling over a ladder.

Please.

I guess I realized that I ought to stop horseshitting myself, and you, and accept that there was, in fact, something about all of this that I wanted to say. It hit me while I was listening to Terry Gross interview some schlocko journalist about the very loose gun laws in Arizona, and, "would stricter gun laws have maybe prevented this tragedy?" She asked him questions about concealed weapons, and whether or not the Glock semiautomatic handgun would have been outlawed under this provision, or that, and how this "alleged shooter" in this incident did purchase his gun legally, but didn't have a concealed weapons permit and under what circumstances could a police officer (if one had been at this event) have stopped the suspect and frisked him after seeing that he had a concealed weapon, and I got so fucking furious I wanted to scream:

TERRY: IT IS CALLED A "CONCEALED WEAPON" FOR A FUCKING REASON, THAT REASON BEING THAT IT IS CONCEALED ON YOUR PERSON AND OUT-OF-VIEW OF OTHERS, LIKE, SAY, A POLICE OFFICER, EVEN A NON-EXISTENT, FICTICIOUS, HYPOTHETICAL POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS NOT EVEN AT THE SAFEWAY WHERE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WERE SHOT.

Then she pissed me off even more by asking, "Well, what about unconcealed weapons? What sort of questions would a police officer ask someone who had an unconcealed weapon?" This stumped her guest.

"Well, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't ask anything."

I was very upset by this point. How ridiculous was this conversation? I just couldn't take it anymore.

Was it the fault of the store that sold the gun?

Was it the fault of the second Walmart that sold the ammunition?

Was it the fault of the parents for not notifying authorities of bizarre behavior?

Was it the fault of mental health practitioners for not notifying the state or the criminal justice system?

Was it the fault of the court that threw out the arrest for drug paraphernalia?

Was it the fault of lax mental health reporting duties?

Was it the fault of law enforcement for not adequately stationing officers at the scene for VIP protection detail?

Was it the fault of the Secret Service and/or the FBI that does not provide routine protection details state-level politicians?

Was it the fault of Sarah Palin and her stupid fucking little target symbols on that map that I can't stand to hear another word about on Facebook or anywhere else?

Was it the fault of the vitriolic state of political debate in this country?

Oh. My God. Oh, my God.

Please.

We are so thirsty for answers, to insatiably horny over assigning blame, so unstoppably greedy when it comes to our relentless, pounding search for scapegoats and reasons and division or healing that any reason, any dignity, any sense of proportion or pause is just thrown right out the window. Mr. President, a moment of silence is a good start, but it's hardly sufficient. Maybe you should have ordered a day. Or a week. Could you, sir, have ordered us some time to just be sad?

What the hell ever happened to just being sad?

My NPR Dilemma

If you're white and drive a Volvo then, like me, you know that NPR is doing its fund-drive thing. This is always a difficult time white Volvo drivers. The temptation, normally, is to switch over to another radio station during this unfortunate period-- however, the other radio stations to which I tune in are also public in nature and are also doing their fund-drive thing at the present moment.

Bad planning, if you ask me. Or, maybe it's just a concerted, coordinated effort to back our asses into a corner and get us to open our wallets.

Or maybe I'm just an insufferable conspiracy theorist.

Or maybe you're out to get me.

In restaurants, I invariably choose the seat with my back against the wall.

Anyway, NPR is begging for money, to pay for its programming, to keep procuring new journalistic talent with funny sounding, vaguely ethnic names, to send reporters to far off, foreign lands, to pay for Carl Kasell's new set of button-down shirts, to buy $2.00 ceramic mugs that they then turn around and "give" to us for a $120 pledge. They have expenses, and I respect that. I listen to NPR, and I don't give them a single penny, and am, therefore, a thief. I readily confess that I habitually steal from the cookie jar that is public radio. And there have been times this week where I have been tempted, dare I say moved to pick up the phone and call to give my pledge to my local NPR affiliate, to put my money where my mouth is, to put in my contribution to support public broadcasting that I love so much and that contributes regularly to my very justified feeling of moral and intellectual superiority. Yes, there are times when I very much feel the urge to donate to public radio.

But then I usually just end up masturbating.

And there you have it. Thank you very much for listening to my NPR dilemma. And now, back to "This American Life" with Ira Glass.

Today, I'm Going to Rip NPR a New Asshole

If this isn't your thing, you've been forewarned. Go somewhere else today, or take it like a grown-up.

If you're Terry Gross, and you got to this blog by Googling yourself, I'm very disappointed in you and your employer. Not surprised, just disappointed.

If you're Wilbert Rideau, and you got to this blog by Googling yourself, enjoy the ride, pal.

There. That's enough preamble, I think. Let's get on with the amble.

----------------------

I like NPR.

I listen to "On the Media," "All Things Considered," "Car Talk," "A Prairie Home Companion," "This American Life," "Thistle & Shamrock," "Morning Edition," "BBC Newshour," and pretty much whatever else I can wrap my hair-sprouting little ears around.

I consider myself a better person for having NPR in my life. I've never donated money to NPR, and I never will, but that's just how I roll. I'm a pretty tightfisted sonofabitch, unless I love you, in which case I will spend inordinate amounts of money to prop up your ego, make you smile, and/or enhance your personal satisfaction with life.

I like NPR. I don't love NPR. There is a definite difference. I like it, and I feel that my life is fuller and richer for liking it, but you won't catch me with a "I ,<3 NPR" bumpersticker on my Volvo's ass, like you'll find on the asses of many a Volvo where I live.

Why not?

Well, NPR has this funny, frankly repellent little habit of glorifying minority prisoners, usually murderers, that I sort of find, um, distasteful.

First came Mumia Abu-Jamal. Those of you who read this blog as it should be read (obsessively and with a steady supply of nachos con carne) will recognize this name. Mumia Abu-Jamal blew apart the head of a Philadelphia Police Officer named Daniel Faulkner on December 9th, 1981. While Jamal was in prison, NPR commissioned him to record "a series of monthly commentaries on the subject of crime and punishment." Understandably, Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police popped a gasket when they heard, and they raised such an uproar that the plans were canceled. His commentaries later appeared in print, in one of the many books he was allowed to write and publish whilst on Death Row.

Now we have Wilbert Rideau. His name isn't nearly as prominent and recognizable as Jamal's, but his crime is no less horrific. In 1961, Rideau robbed a bank in Louisiana. He kidnapped two tellers and the bank manager, shoving them all into a car owned by one of the tellers, Julia Ferguson. The manager, Jay Hickman, leapt out of the car in an attempt to escape. Rideau jumped out and shot Hickman, wounding him. He then shot tellers Dora McCain and Julia Ferguson. Hickman fled and hid, McCain played dead, but Rideau found Ferguson still alive. He stabbed Ferguson straight through the heart with a hunting knife, killing her. Rideau never denied that he robbed the bank, and he never denied shooting McCain & Hickman, and killing Ferguson. He was sentenced to death by an all-white jury but, in 1972, when the death penalty was abolished in Louisiana, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

While in jail, he became the head of the Angolite, the prison newspaper for the Louisiana State Penitentiary (commonly referred to as Angola). His writing earned him nominations for seven national literary awards. He was NPR's "Fresh Air" prison correspondent from 1992-1995. He has had book deals and book signings and probably even book release parties.

In 2000, Rideau's conviction for murder was overturned on the basis that blacks had been excluded from his original trial jury. He was retried and found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 21 years in prison. Having already served 44, he was released.

He's been referred to by "Life" magazine as "America's Most Rehabilitated Prisoner."

You can probably guess by now that I'm not someone who's easily impressed by such accolades.

The fact that NPR feels compelled to lay laurels and garlands at the feet of a convicted, admitted murderer is something that utterly repulses me. If I had a subscription, I'd cancel it. If I donated money, I'd make them give it back. If I had a ceramic NPR coffee mug, I'd break it on my formica counter. I considered writing an angry letter, but nobody reads those, so I thought I'd write an angry blog post, because I know at least you will read that.

And maybe you'll be angry with me. Or maybe you'll challenge me to look at this in a different light. I've got to warn you, though: I'm a pretty tough nut to crack, especially when innocent blood has been spilt.

You may be of the opinion that Wilbert Rideau, who spent forty-four years of his life in prison, is a victim. This is certainly how NPR looks at him, or at least, it's one of the ways in which NPR looks at him. They also look at him, I feel, as a lightning rod-- for controversy, for educated, well-coiffed white people (some in Volvos!) to feel good about championing, from a comfortable distance, of course.

NPR loves the eloquent, felonious minority. It gets practically squishy when it learns of a well-written, well-spoken minority prisoner who "tells it like it is" and who "isn't afraid to go there." Someone who brings a sensitive, weathered, dignified face to the imprisoned masses of America. If they turn out to be wrongly convicted and incarcerated, so much the better-- but NPR is not particular about that.

You can practically smell the festering, woefully inadequate and apologetic tone of the following sentence in the piece about Rideau on NPR's website:

"Rideau always acknowledged his victims and took full responsibility for his crime."

As if we should all be lining up to pin a merit badge on his shirt. Careful, Wilbert: I may pin that sucker on a little harder than expected.

Probably in a month or two, NPR will throw an obligatory, conciliatory bone to Julia Ferguson's family members, if there are any who are still alive, by giving them a minute or two of airtime, you know-- to show how fair and balanced they are. And, with that, their hands will be as clean as the morning dew. Certainly cleaner than Wilbert Rideau's hands-- forever stained with the blood that flowed from a grotesque murder, from the heart of an innocent woman. I agree that this is America, and that everybody deserves a voice. But does the voice of a convicted murderer need to be on NPR? Maybe Rideau should stick to blogging.

Not only that: what about Julia Ferguson's voice? Why does the man who silenced that voice forever get to be heard? Where is the justice? Where is the logic? Where is the sense of decency?

They say that time heals all wounds, but it doesn't bring murdered people back to life, and it doesn't create celebrated journalists out of their killers.

Or does it?

NPR Sundays

I'm taking a break from stripping wallpaper.

I've been doing it from 9:30-2:15, pretty much without a breath. We moved the big-ass radio from the living room to the kitchen so that we could both listen to NPR's Sunday offerings while listening to the radio together. Mrs. Apron was busily crafting away in preparation for a craft fair, and I was-- well, stripping.

I may sound like a tote-bag-slinging, mug-loving snob for saying this, but I love NPR Sundays. Today was a great day-- we started listening earlier than we normally do and caught most of a show called "On the Media" which had a lot of content about the pros and cons of being anonymous on the intrawebz, a subject which is both near and dear to my little apron-covered heart. The show discussed websites that have nameless and faceless bloggers and writers reviewing restaurants and physicians, and the various complications that ensue from such brave souls who write without fear of any real repercussions. One former neurosurgeon now heads a group called "Medical Justice" or some such shit and he was discussing how inappropriate it is for laymen and women to rate doctors on standards-of-care because, really, us nincompoops and doingobats aren't qualified so to do. We are, though, qualified to say whether or not doctors are "jerks." At least, according to this prick.

There was an unrelated psychologist from Britain (St. Bart's) who stated that those who write on the internet under the guise of anonymity run the risk of unleashing a torrent of rage that would normally have been restrained under the auspices of social constraints and the norms of civility. And, while I must say that I believe he has a legitimate point, if I ever see this guy I'm going to freak the fuck out on him, his family and his dead ancestors and rain down on them like the unending fires of hell.

People like to get down on bloggers and other internet writers who write under a pseudonym and, even as a pseudonymninious blogger, I understand that. It's the old, "Show yourself! Meet me by the flagpole after school! Meet me in the parking lot bar! Stop hiding behind your mommy, or your daddy, or your big brudder, or your white hood, or your religion, or your gay-ass online handle."

"Mr. Apron."

I mean, seriously. What a fag.

And, to a certain extent, I agree with people who advocate for more online transparency. On the other hand, I'd like to introduce myself to these people and say,

"Hi. If you can guarantee that I can continue blogging with my full 1st ammendment freedoms intact and still keep my job and my community standing, then I'll toss this pseudonym in the trashcan where it probably belongs."

Trouble is, nobody can give me that guarantee. Ironically, the internet, which was created as a mode for increased self-expression, comment, commentary and exchange of ideals has created a vacuum in which freedoms and rights get routinely suffocated, and decent people are hung out to dry. Sometimes it's because of a story that you wrote eight years ago that had the word "fuck" in it. Maybe it's a Facebook picture of you holding the ubiquitous red, plastic cup at a frat party, your eyes glazed over and your tongue hanging out like the family dog's, your navel-ring visible below your midrift top. Maybe it's a YouTube video of you dancing in your room to the Lord Nelson Mass in your Hello Kitty underwear.

In this era of extreme visibility, you'd better start Googling yourself and seeing what comes up, before your current or prospective employer does. Take the advice from one who has been burned: do it today.

I argue to everyone out there that anonymous internet writers have largely been driven to do so out of a very real and damnable need for self-protection. Anonymity is our only defense against the Googlers of the world who would use our words against us in a heartbeat. Goodbye controversial, humorous musings. Farewell, freedom of expression. See you later, honesty. They call us cowards, but I dare someone to stand up and call Mark Twain a coward. Obviously, though, Samuel Langhorne Clemens felt the need to create another identity so that he could express himself in a freer way. And Mark Twain wasn't his only cover: there was Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, among many other elaborate ones. For a while, in the early days, he was known simply as "Josh." The outside world creates a need for pseudonyms-- writers just create the names.

"This American Life" was next. Two very depressing stories by people who probably should have used pseudonyms, but didn't.

Then there was "Car Talk." Everybody knows Tom & Ray Magliozzi as "Click & Clack," and I think that's how they like it. That way, all the people to whom they erroneously recommend new catalytic converters or fuel pumps can't so easily find them and raise hell. Tom & Ray probably don't need pseudonyms, but they have every right to them.

I only listened to the first ten minutes of "Prairie Home Companion" before shutting it off, turning off the wallpaper steamer and coming upstairs, sufficiently moved to blog. If you listen to the full two hours of "Prairie Home" you won't hear Garrison Keillor mention his own name once. Most radio personalities mention their names constantly, after every single break, worried, apparently, that the listeners won't know who they are if they don't constantly drop their own names. Garrison Keillor doesn't seem to worry about that. I guess he figures that he's been doing this for so long, everybody knows his name anyway and, if they don't, well-- that doesn't much matter anyway. As long as they keep clapping after the "Powdermilk Biscuit" ads and the "Guy Noir" sketches, that's really all Garrison Keillor cares about. He strikes me as someone who's old enough to not have to be very much concerned with his own personal noteriety, or his own name-- if that really is his name.

I like that Garrison Keillor doesn't mention his name all the time, or at all. He doesn't need to. And neither do the rest of us.